- Headaches, we all get them. Some worse than others. But did you know there are 10 things that you encounter in your everyday life that could be causing your headaches. Let's get started. Your cellphone. We spend a tremendous amount of time looking at YouTube videos,
TikToks, meme reviews. But the reality is when we constantly straining our eyes for long periods of time, it can actually lead to
a headache developing. Now, I like to follow the 20-20-20 rule where you pick a point 20
feet away every 20 minutes, and you stare at that
point for 20 seconds. it allows your eyes a moment to reset, to recalibrate, and decrease the strain
that's being put on them. Therefore, reducing the likelihood that you'll develop a headache. Something I'm also seeing is that folks tend to keep their cellphones way too close to their eyes. In fact, there was some
research done on this by the SUNY College of Optometry where they looked at the distance people looked at printed
materials versus cellphones. Printed materials, 16
inches away from the face. Pretty good distance. cellphones, 12 to 14 inches. Sometimes up to seven inches only away from the face. What happens? That puts a tremendous strain on the eye, forces it to accommodate. And, as a result, that
can lead to headaches. Folks, keep the cellphone
a little further away and watch that screen time. Caffeine, specifically
the lack of caffeine. I'm talking about caffeine withdrawal. It's likely that if you've
been taking caffeine consistently for a long period of time and abruptly discontinue it, you can develop withdrawal leading to headaches,
fogginess, irritability, and other symptoms. Now, my recommendation to my patients who want to stop cold turkey is that they should be prepared to experience symptoms
of caffeine withdrawal. And if they don't want to, they can slowly taper themselves off. Either decreasing the
amounts they drink each day or perhaps mixing their cup of Joe with a cup of decaf. The reason these headaches even happen is because when you ingest caffeine, it actually narrows your blood vessels within your brain. And without the caffeine, these blood vessels widen, leading to these headaches
and withdrawal symptoms. Pillows, specifically the wrong pillows. Look, the average human spends one third of their lifetime asleep. According to my recent YouTube poll that you guys answered, you're not even doing that. Which, by the way, is a big problem. Anyway, the comfort of your sleep is intimately tied to how you feel the next morning when it comes to neck pain and headaches. Now, when I talk about pillows, I'm specifically talking about supportive pillows based on the type of sleeper that you are. For example, if you sleep on your back, you don't need a very supportive pillow because you want your spine to be in a neutral position. But if you're a side sleeper, you need that extra layer of support to help lift up your head and keep your spine in
the neutral position, decreasing the likelihood
that you would get neck pain or tension headaches. This also holds true for mattresses. Pick a mattress too soft, you'll sink in and lose
that spinal alignment. Pick a mattress to firm, you'll wake up with shoulder
pain and neck pains. Make sure you test drive the mattress you're gonna be spending
a third of your life in. Cheese. Cheese, cheese. Not this cheese, this cheese and wine. Two foods that are actually consumed commonly together, but can be triggering for migraine susceptible individuals. Why does this happen? Because there's a
substance known as tyramine that's found in aged foods. Blue cheese, Parmesan, Swiss cheese, wine, aged meats, etc. That can actually cause a
preliminary vasoconstriction in the blood vessels in the brain, meaning they shrink, which wouldn't cause a headache. But then immediately after cause a rebound vasodilation where the same blood vessels starts swelling in the brain. As a result, you trigger a migraine. Ways to prevent this, avoid tyramine containing products or at least plan ahead. I love cheese. Can't stop cheese, though. Teeth, I'm talking specifically
about teeth grinding. That's right, bruxism is a
legitimate medical condition where you clench and grind your teeth. If you do this at night, it could be a sleep movement disorder leading to problems with the TMJ area. The TMJ is a hinge joint that actually moves forward and backward, but also side to side. It allows you to laugh, speak, chew. But if there's a problem there, it can be quite painful known as a temporomandibular disorder. And if you have pain there, it can radiate to the head or even feel like a headache on its own. Now, if you have mild bruxism, that may not be a problem. But the idea is to get ahead of it before it becomes a problem. So see your dentist, discuss whether or not you're clenching your teeth at night, and perhaps get yourself a protective tray in order to decrease the
damage to the TMJ area. Painkillers. That's right, the medications that are actually supposed to be taken to get rid of a headache can actually cause a headache. When does this happen? When you overuse the medication. These medications are actually indicated to be taken sporadically, every now and then, for a headache. So if you're taking them
every single day of the week, first of all, that's a problem, you should go see your doctor, it can lead to a condition known as rebound headaches or medication overuse headaches. These are legit medical diagnoses with the treatment being
stopping the painkiller. How ironic is that? Stopping the painkiller
can actually stop the pain. It's almost kind of backwards. The biggest culprits here, acetaminophen, commonly known as Tylenol, or some of the prescription
medications like opiates. So you gotta be really careful when you're using these and talk to your doctor if the headaches aren't stopping. Weather, it's truly a big
trigger for migraine suffers. And we're talking about drops in barometric pressures, high temperatures, low temperatures, high humidity, dryness. All of these things could mean something for different people and trigger headaches. Now, an interesting theory that exists that actually gets me excited is that perhaps individuals who've inherited the
sensitivity to weather, that they get a headache
before a storm perhaps, can actually have inherited
it for a very good reason. Our ancestors, the ones who didn't hide before the storm because they had a headache, perhaps didn't survive. And maybe you're here right now because your ancestors
actually got a headache and hid from the storm. Kind of cool to think about if true. Headbands, caps, hats,
headphones, goggles, ponytails. I'm talking about compression, specifically compression headaches. That's right, if you wear something extremely tight across your forehead, across your scalp, you're actually putting pressure on the nerves underneath the skin, irritating those nerves. And they actually receive
signals from the brain going to the face, leading to a potential headache if they are irritated. The most common culprits here are the trigeminal and occipital nerves that actually feed
innervation, meaning sensation, to your face and back of your head. So go ahead, take off that hat. Take off those headphones, goggles, and let that hair down. Prescription glasses. Now these could be the wrong prescription or it could simply be your eyes adjusting to the new prescription. If you wear bifocals or trifocals, you actually have to look at a specific angle of the lens in order for your eye to get comfortable. And there's an adjustment period there, during which time you can get a headache. If you're getting the wrong
prescription completely, that's gonna cause a
strain on your eye muscles, which there are six of. If those hurt, your head can hurt. You could also have an issue with the frames of the glasses where they put too much
pressure on your nose, the backs of your ears or even on your temples, leading to other headaches as well. Perfumes. Well, I'm kind of being
unfair to perfumes here 'cause it's really all extreme scents, powerful scents if you will. They can be a known trigger for migraines. In fact, a 2011 survey found that perfumes and strong scents where the top of the list
for migraine triggers. We don't even have a clear reason as to why this happens, but it looks like individuals who smell a strong scent have a dilation of the arteries inside their brain where they actually swell and trigger the nervous system to experience that level of pain. It's the chemical composition of the scent that leads the body to react this way. How do you know if you're
one of these individuals triggering your migraines by scent? Keep a migraine journal. Every time you have a migraine, see what's going on in your life and see if you can find a connection. Click here for a video on everything you need
to know about green tea. Its health benefits, how to make it.
I asked a girl out and she said no. It gave me huge headaches for days.